


a study in jumps

by JkWriter



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, Apocalypse, Character Study, Growing Up, Self-Doubt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-28
Updated: 2019-04-03
Packaged: 2019-12-25 21:03:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18269297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JkWriter/pseuds/JkWriter
Summary: five first week in the apocalypse isn’t great





	1. before leaving

Five didn’t listen. He never listens to anyone, except maybe Vanya, but especially not his father. Reginald Hargreeves didn’t care about the health or safety of his children and was constantly reminding them they were disappointments no matter what they did. Case in point: their most recent mission. 

“None of you were fast enough. Number Seven could have done better and she is _ordinary_.” 

Five never liked the way Hargreeves would call Vanya ordinary. He used it as an insult. Five didn’t think there was anything wrong with his sister being ordinary. It kept her out of the danger they faced every day. It kept her human.

“I expected more from you, Number One. As the leader of this team, you are expected to bring success. These kinds of failures will not be tolerated.” Luther was the only one who looked bothered by Hargreeves’ lecture. Everyone else seemed bored and disinterested. “Number Two, you are not to show weakness when facing an enemy. Fix your speech or you will be benched.” 

He rolled his eyes. Hargreeves was attacking them for things they had no control over. Diego’s speech, Vanya’s lack of powers. What was going to be next? Klaus’ inability to summon spirits? Ben’s complete hatred of the monsters under his skin? Five was done with this. He jumped from the room, not very far, just to the kitchen where Vanya was sitting with Grace. They both smiled when he came in. 

“Number Five! I am not through with you!” Hargreeves yelled, but they both knew he wouldn’t chase after him. It would be pointless as Five would just jump again and again until the man gave up. 

“Yeah,” Five said to himself. “Well, I’m through with you.” He sat at the table next to Vanya. “Whatcha doing?” 

“Mom’s teaching me how to play Sudoku,” Vanya said, showing him the completed puzzle.

“Nice.” Five made a mental note to pick up a Sudoku book for his sister so she would have something to do while everyone else was out of the house. “Want to explain it to me?” He already knew how to play Sudoku, but the way Vanya smiled when he asked made it worth the explanation, even if his attention did start to focus after they completed the first puzzle together. 

“Wanna try one on your own?”

“Nah, it’s more fun with you.” 

Vanya looked down at the puzzle. Five wondered what was going through her mind. Did she see through his lie and only indulged him because she felt bad? Did you want to do something else but didn’t know how to voice her opinion because everyone else in the house was always shutting her down? 

“You don’t have to do this.” 

“Do what?”

“Pretend. I’m okay by myself, I promise. You can go back to the others.” 

“Why would I want to do that?” 

“Because I’m ordinary.” 

Five wanted to kill Hargreeves. He wanted to kill him in the most prolonged and painful way for making Vanya fee like she wasn’t worthy of spending time with his brother. He wanted to smack sense into the rest of his siblings for never taking the time to get to know their sister beyond “she plays viola or something”. It wasn’t fair to her to grow up like this. It wasn’t fair to any of them. 

He didn’t say any of this. Instead, he said, “I like ordinary.”, and Vanya smiled again. That was good. Five liked when she smiled. 

Still, there were days when even Vanya couldn’t get Five out of his own head. 

“He told me no again.” 

“Maybe it’s for the best?” 

“No, no I’m definitely ready.” 

Vanya sighed from her place atop Five’s bed. Five flicked his eyes over to her for a moment. Then he starts pacing again. It had been an hour since he called Vanya into his room. Fifty-six minutes until he finally admitted what was bothering him. And fifty-two since he had started pacing while explaining everything wrong with their father’s reasoning. 

“Five, maybe you should listen to dad…” 

“I’m not listening to him. When had he ever had our best interest at heart? I bet he’s hiding something. He’s always been obsessed with some greater purpose. There’s something he’s not telling us.” 

“He doesn’t keep things from us.”

“That’s not true. Everyone has secrets.” Five stopped and turned to face his sister. “I sneak out sometimes after light’s off. I never go far, just far enough that nothing’s under his influence anymore. The world isn’t as dangerous as he says. There are bad guys, but nothing catastrophic. If he really wanted us to help people we would offer aid after a disaster, instead, he closes the doors on anyone who asks for help.” Vanya was quiet so Five kept talking to fill the silence. “I read some of the books about us. He has pages and pages of notes from the things he puts us through. Normal kids aren’t supposed to be tested like lab rats. Dad’s crazy.” 

“I know, but we’re not normal kids, are we? I mean, everyone’s got some sort of power and I live with you guys. You guys are like the superheroes in one of Ben’s comic books and I’m the damsel in distress.” 

“You’re not a damsel in distress.” 

“Are you honestly telling me I wouldn’t be a liability on a mission? There’s a reason dad stopped taking me, you know.” 

Five stopped complaining long enough to sit next to Vanya on the bed. He wasn’t very good at comforting people but he tried for her. “The field isn’t very fun. It’s really depressing and we never find out what happens to the people we save.” 

Vanya pulls her knees up to her chest and tucked her head in. “Still beats sitting alone not knowing if everyone is going to come home.” 

Five finally understood. This was why Vanya went door-to-door checking on everyone after a mission, even though the others would yell at her to leave. This was why she wished them good luck despite everyone except for Five, Ben, and Klaus running straight past her out this door. This was why she paid Ben and Klaus special attention because out of everyone their abilities were the most volatile and no one knew if they would survive them. 

“We’ll always come home, I promise.”

And Five kept that promise until he didn’t. 

Really, it comes back to listening. Hargreeves told him he wasn’t ready. Vanya told him he wasn’t ready. He even told himself he wasn’t ready but he was so desperate to prove them, to prove himself wrong, that he tried it anyway. And it worked. Time travel was great, at first. It was easy, just like he had thought it would be. He jumped to the past, and then back to the present. Everything was fine, so he tried the future, and that’s where it went wrong. 

It was the air. What should have been clean was dirty, covered in layers and layers of dust and ash. There were no sounds asides from the crackling of fires. Everything around him...it was gone. Broken. Destroyed. 

“No...” This wasn’t right. Something went wrong. This wasn’t the future. This wasn’t where they were going. “No, I can fix this.” Except he couldn’t, because he couldn’t jump. “NO!” He tried again. The energy flickered around him and then fell away. “C’mon,” he pleaded, begging for the energy to take him home. “Please, I promised. I promised her, I’m coming home I promised.” 

This promise was made to be broken.


	2. the apocalypse begins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> five first week in the apocalypse isn’t great

The end of the world fucking sucks. For one, he's not even supposed to be here. Five was thirteen. He was supposed to be at home, growing up with his siblings, saving the world with the Umbrella Academy (but judging on the current state, they failed at that. Five wondered if they even tried or were too busy bickering about useless things like numbers to focus), and doing literally anything other than stumbling through the rubble of his childhood home while searching for signs of life. 

“Mom?” Mom’s invincible. She was built to survive six super powered children, surely something like this wouldn’t kill her, right? 

Five loses hope seeing the remains of a robotic arm trapped because the fireplace.   
Pogo is next to her, body impaled on the antlers of a deer. He loses his stomach to the site. Hunched over everything he had for dinner comes out. Five doesn’t mourn them very long. 

“Luther?” He tries next. Luther is strong, he wouldn’t be taken down so easily. “Diego? Allison?” Why was no one responding? This wasn’t right. “Ben? Klaus?” Six and Four. They were always together. They were probably hiding out in a closet somewhere. Where? an unhelpful voice supplies. “Vanya?” Vanya was safe. She had to be safe. Vanya was Vanya, ordinary and always kept from the fight. Vanya would be safe. “Dad?” He finally calls out, simultaneously hoping and dreading to hearing his voice. 

The world was silent save for the crackling of fire. This wasn’t right. They were the Umbrella Academy. They were meant to save the world. What the fuck happened to it? Where was everyone?

“Guys...Guys if this is a joke it’s not funny!” He called out, walking from the ruins of his house. “Seriously, stop messing around.”

And two, Five has to bury his family. 

He tripped on a chunk of concrete, barely saving himself from being impaled on the pole sticking out of it. This stumble brings Five face to face with a man. He’s pale, deathly cold, and looks too much like Luther to be a coincidence. 

Five scrambled back away from definitely-not-his-brother. Further back he could see another body. Tanned-skin, dark hair, and no. No no no. This was not happening. A little further and he could see a woman, curly-hair framing her face, dark skin covered in ashes. It couldn’t be Allison just like the other couldn’t be Luther and Diego. 

He didn’t want to look any further, but he had to. Five crawled forward pushed himself into a kneeling position in front of Not-Luther. Just because he looked like his brother didn’t mean it was. Five had read plenty of stories on doppelgängers. 

A shaking hand reached forward, touching the icy skin of Not-Luther. Not-Luther has something held in his hand. Five pried it open, pulling a glass eye from his brother’s, no, not brother, Not-Luther’s hand. It meant nothing that this man put up a fight. Plenty of people could rip a glass eye from someone, right? It couldn’t be hard, it was fake after all. 

Five pocketed the eye. He stood up, taking in the sight in front of him. Three bodies that looked like his siblings. That’s fine. That’s three bodies of people who weren’t his siblings. 

Across the lot he saw something. Someone. Another body. This one wasn’t buried under the rubble. This one wasn’t wearing clothes that covered important identifying marks. 

This one had the umbrella tattooed on their arm, a small line of ink where flinching blemished the piece, just like Klaus. How many people had that tattoo? They were heroes. People must have gotten it to commemorate them. Five rushed forward, dropping to his knees. Because that wasn’t any umbrella tattoo. Anyone could recreate it, but no one would have the same mishap as Klaus. 

“No…” Five shook Klaus as if it might wake him from death. “C’mon Klaus, this isn’t funny get up.” More shaking. No response. “Klaus, get up. Pl...please get him.” His voice cracked. “You can’t do this to me.” 

He tried Allison. 

“Allie? Please, please get up. Rumor me, practice makeup, I don’t care. Just get up.” 

“Diego?” Five said, crawling to his brother. He wondered what kind of life Diego had grown into to be dressed like a fighter. “Diego, you promised me we’d go to Griddy’s. I don’t know how many yesterday’s that is for you, but it’s my tomorrow. Please get up.” 

He couldn’t even shake Luther. His brother had gotten so big. He could see hair spilling from a slice down his jacket. “I’ll stop arguing if you get up. You can be the leader, Number One, I don’t care anymore. All of it’s yours if you just get up.” 

In the end it takes him three days to dig the graves. Luther’s was the hardest, he had to accommodate for his brother’s size and the difficulty it was to move him. He started by clearing the rubble. The more he pulls away the more sick he feels. Broken bones and twisted bodies greet him. He can’t even imagine what they were up against to face this kind of damage. He does wonder if it would have been different with him there. This is the kind of shit future their father was preparing them for. Five trained for this, they all did and lost, but maybe a Five could have given them the advantage they were missing.

He doesn’t dwell on it. He can’t think about what-ifs right now, not when he’s too busy planning how to get back. The future isn’t set in stone, he can change it. He just needs to get home. First, though, he lays his siblings to rest. 

“I don’t know what you’re supposed to say at these.” He said, staring down at the four graves lined next to each other. They’re not perfect, actually they’re a pretty big disaster, but it’s the best he could do given the circumstances. “I’m sorry I left. I don’t know if it would have changed anything, but maybe I could have done something.” He looked up. Were they here? This would be a good time to have Klaus. Klaus would know, he could translate. “I’m sorry, guys. Even if nothing changed...I should have been there. We’re a team, and teams stick together.” he looks back down. Four graves. Four dead siblings. Two more who could still be out there. “Don’t worry. I’ll find Vanya and Ben and I’ll fix this, I promise.” 

Five left the Umbrella Academy with a change of clothes, a gallon of water, and a book on physics. He doesn’t have a plan. There’s not exactly anywhere he can go, everything for miles is destroyed, but he starts walking. The Umbrella Academy had fallen, and it’s lone soldier marched on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wrote this on my iPhone in a NyQuil haze hope it doesn’t suck 
> 
> i have a [discord](https://discord.gg/Pwah8sR)!  
> come join in fic recs and weather trashing

**Author's Note:**

> imma do a character study for all the hargreeves okay goodbye
> 
> i have a [discord](https://discord.gg/Pwah8sR) come join my squad


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